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Hot damn. no. the seller got a junk bike probably for free or $5 and put a days work and maybe $100 and some spare parts on it with paint. It's obvious they built it to flip it not ride it. you can get a brand new bike for $400-500.

well for starters, that seat is way to low and looks a bit to far forward. No one that road their bike would have their seat like that. And someone that actually rode that bike wold have toe clips. I agree with the other people, this bike was defiantly built to sell, you could build a bike for less then 500 easily, less then 400 even.

Please don't even offer that jaggo $400 for that thing. It might be worth 125-200 in some really really pumped up markets, but nowhere is it worth anywhere near $400. That answers your question, and I don't even really need to get worked up over it

Can anyone elaborate? I'm still learning and I'm curious to know why it's unrideable and junk and all that.

I'll go with all of your advice and skip this one, then.

I wouldn't say it's unrideable junk, just not worth $400. French bikes can be difficult to find parts for, as anyone who's tried to find a 24mm seatpost will attest. This bike has a slapdash of parts (Bianchi/A Class rear), shimano 105 front and what looks like an original crankset. No brakes, no clips/straps. There's a large amount of space between the rear brake bridge and the wheel, suggesting this likely had 27" wheels. No decals and what appears to be clean paint suggest a rattlecan paint job. If it'd been powdercoated the seller would have said. None of these things make it outright unrideable, but chip away at the justification for the price tag.

At that price, you can get a nice complete bike that'll be backed by a shop, assuming you buy it an LBS.

Cottered crankset I'm sure the builder did not service (if he knew how to get it apart he would have swapped it out for a decent cotteless). Said crankset left with an unchangeble 52 tooth ring which is useless for a city bike.

700c wheels on a bike that already has more than generous clearence for the original 27" wheelset. Makes finding a brake caliper that will work difficult, not to mention looks horrible (love that 4" gap at the fork).

The bike was done on the cheap and should be sold on the cheap as well. There's nothing wrong with a beater UO8 but paying $500 for one done like that is.

Cottered crankset I'm sure the builder did not service (if he knew how to get it apart he would have swapped it out for a decent cotteless). Said crankset left with an unchangeble 52 tooth ring which is useless for a city bike.

700c wheels on a bike that already has more than generous clearence for the original 27" wheelset. Makes finding a brake caliper that will work difficult, not to mention looks horrible (love that 4" gap at the fork).

The bike was done on the cheap and should be sold on the cheap as well. There's nothing wrong with a beater UO8 but paying $500 for one done like that is.

buying a peugeot conversion is like buying a used paper plate.
people convert peugeots because they have access to a free bicycle and want to ride fixed.
even then, people will often times skip peugeots altogether, especially if they plan on growing with the bike.

seriously, do not be that sucker.

Originally Posted by bonechilling

Road [racing] is one of the only sports where adult men can compete in a non-scholastic setting, so inevitably 8/10 racers are fiercely-competitive nobodies. It's fun as hell, but it's also the foremost refuge of defeated and aging jocks, turned middle-management types.

buying a peugeot conversion is like buying a used paper plate.
people convert peugeots because they have access to a free bicycle and want to ride fixed.
even then, people will often times skip peugeots altogether, especially if they plan on growing with the bike.

seriously, do not be that sucker.

I'll agree with you.

I converted a Peugeot UO8. The bike was free. I put 700c wheels on it and a shimano rsx crankset on it and some cheap pedals and a new saddle. I didn't do all the labor myself, I let the LBS do some of it just out of sheer convenience and I have about $350 in the bike. I know it wont ever sell for that, but it's a good reliable bike. I'd feel ripped off if I'd have paid $500 for one.

I converted a Peugeot UO8. The bike was free. I put 700c wheels on it and a shimano rsx crankset on it and some cheap pedals and a new saddle. I didn't do all the labor myself, I let the LBS do some of it just out of sheer convenience and I have about $350 in the bike. I know it wont ever sell for that, but it's a good reliable bike. I'd feel ripped off if I'd have paid $500 for one.

This response cracks me up. You had a complete bike of the same type as above and put $350 into it and you are telling a guy with no frame to start with not to offer $400 for a completed bike.

The frame is no great shakes, but it is not a "bad" frame. I don't believe you can roll your own conversion from scratch for less than $400 (maybe not less than $500). Yeah, I know you can do it for nothing IF you have an existing bike that happens to have track hubs and one sprocket on the crank. Yes, I know there are some folks on the thread (like me) that have boxes full of old parts that can be used, and that can make it cheaper. And I know that diligent dumpster diving and Goodwill shopping can lead to cheaper frames, IF you live in a small, non Western city and have no wife or family obligations.

But don't lead this guy astray.

A frame on CL or ebay is going to run $50-100 (or more these days). A complete bike will be $150 or more for vintage steel - even stuff like the UO8. A PX-10 can run $400-600 for a complete bike on cl.

Reconfiguring an existing bike will run $200-250 minimum on top of the cost of the bike, and building up a frame will be $350 or more depending on if you can really save the cranks and bars (again, above and beyond the cost of the frame/fork). It is also a tremendous pain to find a proper-fitting frame with the right dropouts/ends, made of steel, that is in the mid-to-high end range for a good framemaker.

What I would agree with is that the frame paint probably is a hack job, and that will be irritating, and that this was a conversion for sale, so some stuff will be low-grade. The cottered cranks and non-matching wheels are irritating. It is probably a stupid bike to buy, but setting the bar for buying a conversion arbitrarily low is just silly.

I would agree that it is smarter to buy a new bike. I didn't, and wouldn't right now, because I like old stuff, and building up with old parts is a form of therapy. But that doesn't mean I can't see the economic value of a new, cheap fixie.

Dude.
Conversions are good starters, but that's not a good conversion.
I'd pay like 150 for that thing tops.
But as I just said, it's better to get a newer steel road frame or track frame rather than an old ten-speed, especially with cottered cranks.

Hot damn. no. the seller got a junk bike probably for free or $5 and put a days work and maybe $100 and some spare parts on it with paint. It's obvious they built it to flip it not ride it. you can get a brand new bike for $400-500.

knowing now that vintage French bike parts are all non-standard, hard to find sizes, i would avoid ever buying one unless it was sub - $100.

I am incredibly curious how you pulled it off for under $400. Can you break down the part cost? I did a thread recently asking for conversion costs and yours would be an outlier - I would love to know how.

Based on real responses, I saw $50-$250 in conversion costs alone (not including cost of complete bike which would be $100-150 realistically). You get $50 if you don't have to buy wheels or really anything but a cog and a chain.